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Mar 30, 2016 By Christopher Roberts

Brian Eno is releasing a new album, The Ship, on April 29 via Warp. Now he has shared almost half the album via its 21-minute-long opening track and title track. You can stream "The Ship" below via Spotify.

Eno had this to say about the track via a press release: "The piece started as an Ambient work intended for a multi channel sound installation in Stockholm, but during the making of it I discovered that I could now sing a low C - which happens to be the root note of the piece. Getting older does have a few fringe benefits after all. From that point the work turned into an unusual kind of song...a type I've never made before where the vocal floats free, untethered to a rhythmic grid of any kind."

The Ship is Eno's first solo album since 2012's LUX. The album also includes a poem read by actor Peter Serafinowicz and ends with a cover of The Velvet Underground's "I'm Set Free." The latter was written by Lou Reed in the late '60s and Eno says it seems "even more relevant now than it did then." 

A press release says the album was "originally conceived from experiments with three dimensional recording techniques." The album only has two tracks, although the second track has three parts and the album's total runtime is 47:31. The press release promises that The Ship "is almost as much musical novel as traditional album." The album was partly inspired by Eno's fascination with World War I and sinking of the Titanic.